rgeyer

Here's how I restored my oxidized and yellowed headlights. This is just a copy/paste from my blog post.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rgeyer/4966004876/http://www.flickr.com/photos/rgeyer/4966004876/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/rgeyer/, on Flickr

A common affliction to older cars is that the headlights begin to become dull, or yellow over time. This had happened to our 1992 Lexus ES300 pictured above. To be fair, the passenger headlight is a little cloudier since I had done a little bit of wet sanding before I took the photo, more on that later though.

I am going to describe the process I used to restore the yellowed and oxidized headlights, but with that comes the disclaimer. This process is not advised, I can not be held responsible if you void your warranty, destroy your headlights, starve your dog, or burn down your house. Your mileage may vary..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rgeyer/4992361420/http://www.flickr.com/photos/rgeyer/4992361420/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/rgeyer/, on Flickr

There are lots of "all-in-one" headlight restoration kits which have different materials and chemicals in them, and they all will work to varying degrees. However, I wanted to take the DIY approach. There are many other how to's and lots of opinions about how this is done, I chose to wet sand to remove the oxidation then spray a few coats of clear and wet sand and polish again til nice and shiny. Here's how I did it.

First, I wet sanded the lens with a 1500 grit paper. I used a spray bottle filled with water and maybe a quarter of an ounce of dish soap, and made sure to keep the lens nice and wet while sanding. Sand just enough to get rid of the yellowing, and get a uniform surface.

The next step was to spray on three coats of Dupli-Color Acrylic Enamel from an aerosol can. I followed the instructions of doing two light coats, then one medium wet coat, each coat separated by 10 minutes.

Then, I put two sheets of 2000 grit paper in a water and dish soap solution to soak overnight. After letting the paper soak and the paint dry over night, I used the same wet sanding process on the clear coat with the 2000 grit paper. I sanded until almost all of the orange peel was gone, but left it a teensy bit wavy so I had some material to remove in the last step.

In the last step I used some Meguiars Ultimate Compound for buffing. This buffed away the last of the orange peel and left a nice smooth shiny surface.

That's all there is to it, and here's the results!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rgeyer/4965991720/http://www.flickr.com/photos/rgeyer/4965991720/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/rgeyer/, on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rgeyer/4965399111/http://www.flickr.com/photos/rgeyer/4965399111/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/rgeyer/, on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rgeyer/4965396443/http://www.flickr.com/photos/rgeyer/4965396443/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/rgeyer/, on Flickr

sbristow84

iTrader: (1)

Very Very Nice!

LeX2K

Nicely done, you basically applied the same process as you would use when bringing some old paint back to life. I am curious though, why did you soak the sandpaper overnight? I've done a similar restoration that you did, and I just wet sanded as per usual no paper soaking. Either way nice work, the results speak for themselves!

On another note, why did Toyota stop using glass lamps? I have a generation 2 Camry and the glass is still in excellent condition and never yellows. Yes sometimes the lenses break but it's fairly rare. Maybe it's too expensive I don't know, but whatever glass Toyota used back then it's amazing stuff.

intermec

when you sand, do you have to do one (left -> right) with 1000 and then (up -> down) with 2000?

I have seen someone mentioned using 600/800 -> 10/15000 -> 2000

rgeyer

A few body guys had suggested it when I was doing research for this project. In theory it would make the paper softer, and get the water and dish soap soaked into it.

Since I had to let the paint dry overnight, I had nothing to lose. :-)

I've heard this as well, but I didn't use this technique, and it didn't seem to make a difference. I used only the 1500 grit left to right to remove the oxidation and other imperfections. Then the 2000 grit (also left to right) to bring down the orange peel.

GoodRevs

Looks very good. I took apart one of my housings and it seems the oxidation/haze/dirt is embedded on the inside of the housing. Meguirs is great stuff too, Plastx is another fine product by them.

I also have wondered why Lexus didn't use projectors on the 3ES after using them on the 2ES?

Megafast13

The high quality sandpapers from Meguiars and 3M don't need to be soaked for more than 15 minutes. It is recommended that you do soak them to get them lubricated. That's why you add a little soap too.

Very nice right up.

Anyone who's afraid to use sandpaper, but have a power drill, buy the Meguiars Headlight Restoration Kit.

D-Boi

iTrader: (5)

it looks awesome i might do this to my GS because the ES has great looking lights, oh yea you might want to make your flickr acct private man your pictures can be seen by anyone unless you are fine with that. just a heads up!

JamesBond1

Looks brand new!!!

rgeyer

Yeah, the privacy settings for my Flickr account is intentional, thanks for the heads-up though. :-)

yeskay

looks good. how does this differ from using plast-x or crystal view product.

3000

More work?

rgeyer

I can't speak from detailed experience but...

I did buy some plast-x, and tried to use it to buff out the lens after I'd wet sanded the oxidation off, and it did clear the lens quite well, but I check this only after I'd done the other headlight with this method, and it paled in comparison.

Just my opinion though, and the plastic polish methods are very effective as well.

Like I said from the outset, this was just the way I chose to handle this issue, but it's not necessarily the best, nor the easiest.

eyezack87

iTrader: (4)

Using just plain plastx or compound without sanding removes the surface oxidation/yellowing. Since you went with such a low grit sandpaper, you removed some of the pitting (if there was any to begin with). You did well in clear coating it man. Kudos to you

Sign up for the Pursuit man if you can make it. Its nice to run into other ES owners

AJFII

Looks great! Well done.